Am I the only one that envisioned cars parked at opposite ends of a bridge at dusk and two people walking to the middle with a couple of boxes?
Figures.
Never mind.
Close. I thought of Checkpoint Charlie, but it’s not a bridge.
What was the name of that video store? If it was video update, I might have worked there.
You aren’t now. And I am amused. 
This is great stuff!
No, it was Kim’s Mediapolis in Manhattan.
But that’s ridiculous. Someone already went through the catalog and decided to purchase said DVD. Just because it’s now lost or broken or something does not mean the library doesn’t want to own it still.
If a patron wants to replace a DVD from Wal-Mart for $5 rather than pay the replacement charge of $30 (that we originally paid for it), I tell them go for it. The library gets a brand new disc of something that still circulates regularly and the patron gets to save $25. It’s win-win.
Edited because I misunderstood what you said. NEVER MIND :smack:
Plus, a lot of books are old and out of print, or at least, hard to find in hard cover anymore.
Well, of course they charged you. They charged you every month to have that disc. You can think of it as “subscription fees” instead of “late fees” if that makes you happier, but it ends up the same.
Good idea. Go to the store that’s been sued overexcessive late fees.
In fact I switched to Netflix when I rented a movie from Blockbuster that retailed for something like $15, forgot to take it back for a week, and the late fee was something like $20. Not only would it have been cheaper if I had just bought the DVD, but if I’d just continually re-rented it it would only have been about $7.50- there’s absolutely no way my failure to return promptly caused them anywhere near $20 in lost revenue. I paid the fine but that was several years ago and I haven’t been in a Blockbuster since.
Your forgetting the cost of the case it was in, the cost of the barcode on it, the time to reprocess it and the lost revenue while it was unavailable for use. Not to mention that it may be a cheaper inferior quality copy.
Are we still talking about libraries? What lost revenue?
As for the case it was in, DVDs come in cases. As for the cost of the barcode, that cost is trivial (especially for a popular item), but there’s no reason why that trivial cost couldn’t be passed on to the patron. As for the time to reprocess it, if that’s a serious concern, you need better processing staff.
And as for the patron buying a cheaper copy, well I make it clear that for this deal to work they have to buy a new copy and it has to be the same edition that was destroyed. But honestly, DVDs are DVDs, there’s no such thing as an “inferior quality” DVD.
Well, sort of. But if you get 2 discs for $14/month, keep disc A for a long time, and change disc B every 4-5 days, you’re still making out as compared to if you rented that many discs.
No you’re not. If you keep Disc A for six months and replace Disc B 4 times every month at the end of six months you’ve spent $84 for 25 discs. But if you used the 1 disc at a time plan of $8/month since you’re only watching 1 disc at a time, after six months you’d spend $48 for 24 discs.
$36 buys a lot of microwave popcorn.
My first reaction was “Lissener’s being a real dick to that video clerk.” Now of course that I’m squared away as to who is who I have to say that it Lissener was very rude to that customer. 
I meant compared to physical stores, which IME (though not stateside, recently), charge ~$4/rental.
My local video shop has stopped charging me late fees of late so no complaint here. I wish they had more videos though. I wish there were a DVD/video library nearby with 100,000s of DVDs/videos without messing around with posting stuff. My local video shop seems to mainly sell gadgets of late.
If the customer contests the charge, which happens only rarely–due to embarrassment, I imagine–my boss doesn’t waste any time fighting it; he. But he does report them to a credit bureau for non-payment of a legitimate debt.
Take your pick.
OK?
It’s an endorsement for Netflix for people who can’t be responsible for returning their videos, yes.